Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the second dose of the Pfizer/Biontech covid-19 vaccine will be delayed for healthcare workers beyond the 28 days recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Updating the dosing interval is in line with the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and is the right thing to do to maximise the impact of the programme and save lives. The Medicines Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has also clarified that for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the interval between doses must be at least three weeks.

Whilst the National Health Service across the United Kingdom will prioritise giving the first dose of the vaccine to those in the most high-risk groups, everyone will still receive their second dose and this will be within 12 weeks of their first.